Post by Adam Samantha & Cora on Mar 27, 2014 13:40:24 GMT -5
Donna had been having a lot of trouble with one of her legs recently. We noticed it on Saturday, and on Sunday she was having some trouble walking on the leg.
We went to a vet in London and he said he saw nothing wrong on her xrays, so he gave her some pain pills. We went with that for a few days, but she seemed to be getting worse by the day, and the pain medications seemed to have no effect at all.
Today we went to Ostrander Veterinary Clinic out near Ingersoll and saw Dr Julie Boutin. This vet clinic was mentioned on the GRA forums, and Bill recommended them personally saying he had brought many hundreds of grey's there.
Julie saw the xrays from the other vet and said they were fine quality, but that they hadn't really looked at the right part of her leg, which was the upper part right where her shoulder bone sort of is. Julie did a few new xrays and came to show us the difference between Donna's left shoulder and right side. The left leg bone (and shoulder) were a nice pearly white, and the bone on the right hand side was black and had patchy areas in it, almost looked like it was turning spongy. Julie explained that this was consistent with very advanced and aggressive Osteosarcoma (bone cancer).
Julie explained that there was really no way to 'fix' this. They could amputate the entire leg, including shoulder bone, but that there was no way to be certain that it hadn't spread past that already. This surgery would be pretty expensive too, in the thousands of dollars, and would probably have to be followed up with radiation and or chemo. The other option would be to just get pain meds and bring her home, but given that she didn't seem to benefit at all from the pain meds we had already this seemed like a poor option. Donna had been in a lot of pain already and the meds made no difference, so it seemed pretty selfish to bring her home and dope her up when it wasn't easing her discomfort at all. She couldn't walk very well and laying down was bad for her. When she tried to sleep she couldn't really move around at all, and when she decided to get up it was very difficult. We didn't really sleep at all on Monday or Tuesday because Donna would cry and yelp every hour or so when she tried to reposition herself.
It was quite a shock to learn about the cancer today, but after thinking about it Sam and I both agreed that it wasn't fair to Donna to prolong her pain just because it may make us feel better by having more time with her. I think her quality of life would have gone down quite a bit, and probably quite quickly, had we not decided to let her go.
Pretty emotional and crappy day so far...but we will keep her in our hearts and minds forever. I'm glad at least that we could be there with her when the end came.
RIP our angel baby
We went to a vet in London and he said he saw nothing wrong on her xrays, so he gave her some pain pills. We went with that for a few days, but she seemed to be getting worse by the day, and the pain medications seemed to have no effect at all.
Today we went to Ostrander Veterinary Clinic out near Ingersoll and saw Dr Julie Boutin. This vet clinic was mentioned on the GRA forums, and Bill recommended them personally saying he had brought many hundreds of grey's there.
Julie saw the xrays from the other vet and said they were fine quality, but that they hadn't really looked at the right part of her leg, which was the upper part right where her shoulder bone sort of is. Julie did a few new xrays and came to show us the difference between Donna's left shoulder and right side. The left leg bone (and shoulder) were a nice pearly white, and the bone on the right hand side was black and had patchy areas in it, almost looked like it was turning spongy. Julie explained that this was consistent with very advanced and aggressive Osteosarcoma (bone cancer).
Julie explained that there was really no way to 'fix' this. They could amputate the entire leg, including shoulder bone, but that there was no way to be certain that it hadn't spread past that already. This surgery would be pretty expensive too, in the thousands of dollars, and would probably have to be followed up with radiation and or chemo. The other option would be to just get pain meds and bring her home, but given that she didn't seem to benefit at all from the pain meds we had already this seemed like a poor option. Donna had been in a lot of pain already and the meds made no difference, so it seemed pretty selfish to bring her home and dope her up when it wasn't easing her discomfort at all. She couldn't walk very well and laying down was bad for her. When she tried to sleep she couldn't really move around at all, and when she decided to get up it was very difficult. We didn't really sleep at all on Monday or Tuesday because Donna would cry and yelp every hour or so when she tried to reposition herself.
It was quite a shock to learn about the cancer today, but after thinking about it Sam and I both agreed that it wasn't fair to Donna to prolong her pain just because it may make us feel better by having more time with her. I think her quality of life would have gone down quite a bit, and probably quite quickly, had we not decided to let her go.
Pretty emotional and crappy day so far...but we will keep her in our hearts and minds forever. I'm glad at least that we could be there with her when the end came.
RIP our angel baby